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Designers Diary – USG Chapters and Easthalen Links

Designers Diary – USG Chapters and Easthalen Links

Yesterday I talked about the planned chapters for Easthalen and mentioned I would do the same for USG (Unnamed Scifi Game – Still need a good title for it). The chunks series is nominally set in this setting.

As before, the planned chapter listing below is rough and subject to change, but it should be something along these lines:

Intro – Should be quite short

Universe Timeline – Will cover the major events

Species and Cultures – Will have pre-made races and probably a simple system for making own which can be expanded on later

Classes and Jobs/Professions – As it says really

Starships & Starbases – Quite important section for a SciFi Game, will detail the various forms of Sub-light and FTL travel around. One expansion for this section is to have a module system for creating these ships and bases, as well as pre-built designed ones.

Systems – Will cover basics of stars and planets, and detail some existing ones, such as Sol.

Technology, Psionics and “Magic” – Although there is no true magic in this setting, there are things that give the appearance of magic, especially to those worlds with a much lower tech level

Powerful Beings – “Gods” do not exist, although there are powerful beings who claim to be gods and can be mistaken for them

Xeno Flora and Fauna – Alien plants and animals and other such things

Equipment – Will cover tools, weapons, armour etc.

Anything Else – As the name says, will cover anything else I can’t think of right now.

How it links to Easthalen

I have mentioned previously how the two games are linked, but in a way that allows you to keep them separate if desired. Crossing over between the two will not be easy, but this is deliberate.

In one of the sci-fi chunks series, I mentioned how one sector, EH-42, was at the centre of a large, dangerous chaotic anomaly, with a planet in the middle that appears to have a circular indent, as if that part was removed from reality, with a strange warping of reality the closer one gets to this place. This planet is the one on which Easthalen is set. The indent is caused by the area having been removed from this reality and cut off from the rest of multiverse. It is also why there is no true god-beings and magic in this universe. When the Easthalen Barrier went up and it phased away from the rest of reality, it required every last particle of magic and deity that did to create it. This occurred quite a long time ago, way before the star known as Sol even existed.

If one can survive the spatial distortions, which are a side effect of so much power in one location, and get to the planet in sector EH-42, IF you can detect the distortions that are in the place where the crater is and IF you can scan them before your probe or ship is torn apart at the sub-atomic level, then you have a small chance of getting in, which is much easier than getting out. This place, and its creation, distorted time and space and required every last drop of magic and the combined power of every true deity, requiring them to seal them self off from the rest of the universe, leaving the rest of it to its own fate. Only a few archaeologists of various species suspect this and the theory that there was once true gods in the universe is often mocked, even though relics do regularly turn up that hint of untold power that once existed then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

If you do somehow manage to breach the barrier that hides Easthalen, the advanced technology required to do will not give you as big as an advantage as you think. All that magic and power in one location has had an effect on the population, giving even the humblest farmer access to the power of the gods, even if doing so is an incredibly risky and dangerous thing to do. From a non-lore point of view, this is my way of explaining how the two games would be balanced. Within Easthalen, Magic is ascendant, outside, technology is king. Although there is a second “world” behind the barrier it thematically different, where magic and tech work together, a blend of the two.